The book I am writing is getting near completion. Here is a couple of pages as a preview for the people who have shown an interest in it and I hope of interest to others.
CHAPTER ONE
Edith Street, South Shields, 14, August 1949. What a bloody dump! Of course I didn’t know this at the time. At the time I did not know anything. At the time I did not know how to swear. Why? Because this was when and where I was born. 138 Edith Street to be precise. Young and innocent I was and I guess born lucky. The reason being that by the time I was old enough to take in the situation around me and recognise just what a dump I was born in, my parents moved. For the time being I was living in a downstairs flat in a row of terraced houses on the Lawe Top, below the family that lived upstairs, who I never personally got to know.
Sharing the family home with me was my mother, father and my brother Denis who was eighteen months older than me. Denis was my mother’s favourite before I was born and still remained her favourite after I was born. He is now his own favourite person, but more about him later.
I must have been a very important personage on the day I was born. First off the government wanted to know all about me because my mother had to go to Barrington Street, where they had their registry office, to give them my name and all the details concerning my birth. I was also given an ‘Identity Card’ from the government just in case people did not know how important I was. The church also wanted to know all about me and they also made sure that I was clean by giving me a bath, well wet me a little bit. This was done at St. Stephens Church in Mile End Road, just around the corner from where I was born. They called it a Christening but that was also something else I did not know at the time.
A Mr. Westhead of St Vincent Street was very pleased at my birth. He was my mother’s Insurance man. He worked for the Co-operative Insurance Society, which had an office at 60 King Street. He thought I was so valuable that he told my mother that she ought to insure me straight away without any delay, this she duly did at 2s 8d per month.
Edith Street was a row of terraced upstairs and downstairs flats that had seen much better days before I was born. It was situated on what is called the Lawe Top and was about one street away from the river Tyne. The place had character, it was said, but what does character mean? In those days on the Lawe Top ‘character’ must have meant cobbled streets with dirty kids playing in the gutter. Dirty working men coming home from the mines. Dirty dock-workers coming home from work. (Some of these workers were dirty before they went off to work in the morning.) Dirty old men staggering from the pubs with what my mother called ‘dirty women’. Dirty back lanes. Dirty corner shops with food and flies on display in the window to whet your appetite to come in and buy. To go with all this dirt you had a great view over the great big dirty river Tyne. You could say that the Lawe Top was dirty, but it would be a risky thing to say in front of any ‘skitender’ (a term used for any person born or living on the Lawe Top). Me, I don’t care, or as Rhet Butler said in the film ‘Gone with The Wind’ “Frankly I don’t give a damn.” So if ‘character’ meant dirt, then indeed, at that time, the Lawe Top definitely had lots of ‘character’.
Amongst all this dirt, sorry I mean character, some of the women, stood out proud and clean. To prove this they would be out every other day scrubbing their doorstep and cleaning the front door. Everyone knew that a clean doorstep and front door meant a clean house. This was not always the case and some women would say of others ‘she is all skirt and no knickers’ meaning her house looked clean on the outside but was filthy on the inside. But I believe, on the whole, everybody did try and keep a clean house, with the dirty ones being the exception.
Another place that was scrubbed clean and whitewashed on a regular basis was the ‘netty’. (The toilet in the back yard.) A dirty netty meant a dirty house. The ‘netty’ was a pride and joy to some people. A clean netty was a status symbol and if you had lino on the netty floor then it was fit for the Queen to sit in. Some people even put flowers in their netty, but most believed that that was going too far, ‘getting a bit above yourself’ they would say. Toilet paper was practically unheard of, instead newspaper would be cut up into little squares and hung on a hook attached to the wall. Even here though there seemed to be a hierarchy. Most people used the local newspaper the Gazette, but others would use a higher-class newspaper, which they may buy or get from other people. The worst ones were those that used to use the magazines that they had obtained from the doctor or dentist’s waiting rooms. Only the better magazine would do of course, despite the high gloss paper that was virtually useless for what you intended to use it for. The outside toilet, sometimes there was only one, which was shared between the two tenants, was a cold, damp, dingy place in the winter and a really smelly place in the summer heat. Also in the summer there were the flies to contend with. You would be sitting there swatting them like mad or trying to chase them out of the gap at the top of the door or the bottom of the door, whilst trying to keep your balance on the seat. Most doors had, for ventilation purposes, a large gap at the top and bottom. In the time I am writing about there was the luxury of having a flush to the toilet, before this you just s**t on ashes, a dry closet they called it, but lets not dwell too much on the subject. Going to the toilet in the middle of the night was nigh impossible. First the back door had to be unlocked, then a candle would have to be lit to see your way across the yard. If it was rainy and windy the candle would invariably be blown out, necessitating you having to go back in to light it. There were also the ghosts to worry about. Ghosts always hung around the back yard at night. When you finally reached the toilet and had locked yourself in you were safe from the ghosts but not the spiders. The toilet spider always came out at night just waiting to drop on you in the middle of your business. It was at this point that you worshipped the potty under the bed, also known as the chamber pot, where you could do your business in the safety of the bedroom. Yes, it took a brave person to go to the outside toilet at night. Mind you, in the morning the potty was regarded with loathing when it came to emptying the thing. If you looked out your back upstairs window early in the morning you would see, as you looked over the back yards, a procession of people carrying these potties to the toilet and you would hear the swoosh of the contents being emptied and then the flush of the toilet itself. A proper symphony this was. What you could call chamber music. The whole toilet business was a nightmare, both day and night.
When you entered the front door of the houses the insides were basically the same, with the same dirt from the big smoky open fire ranges. Damp, with washing hanging from every nook and cranny trying to dry, giving moist air of dampness to the whole place. Old carpets that had the life beaten the hell out of them by trying to remove the ever-present dust and the ever-present life living in them. There always seemed to be a constant battle with dirt going on. Some people were fighting it every day. Some people just gave up. You could say that if you looked beyond the netty door you would be in for a shock in more ways than one.
comeonthen
BEYOND THE NETTY DOOR
Moderator: andysfootball
-
comeonthen
- Full Time Gobber
- Posts: 499
- Joined: Wed Dec 03, 2008 5:46 pm
Re: BEYOND THE NETTY DOOR
Another few pages
On nearly every street corner there was a corner shop. They were mainly managed, or owned, by men in brown overalls. These overalls had a thousand uses and could not be dispensed with. Down the sides of the overall was where he could clean his hands after handling the bloody meat before he handled the bread. The bottom of the overall could be lifted up to delicately carry the cakes from one part of the shop to the other, and the bottom corner of the overall handy, when no one was looking, for dusting off the counter and the mice droppings off the shelves, along with the dead flies that would accumulate.
On occasions the whole overall could be used as an offensive weapon against the major crime spree of young kids coming into the shop and grabbing a handful of sweets before running off. When alerted, the shopkeeper would run to the end of the counter where he had a counter-hinged opening revealing a waist high swing door. Up would go the counter, the swing door would fly open and the shopkeeper, now the vigilante, was on his way. He knew that by the time he got from behind the counter the kids would be out of the shop, so on his way the overall would be unbuttoned and taken off. This then would be rolled up in a ball and the chase would begin, with the shopkeeper scoring if he could bounce this overall off some young kids head. Sometimes a really daring kid would grab the overall after it was tossed, and after a few passes between his mates the overall would be dumped, preferably in some muddy puddle, if there was one handy. Exasperated the shopkeeper would pick up the overall, dust it off, put it back on and go back into his shop where he would get sympathy from the woman whom he had been serving before the commotion started. “I recognise some of them and will tell their mothers about it and make sure that they get a dammed good hiding, little thieving beggars, the lot of them”. With these words the woman would be leaving the shop with the packet of tea she had bought, placed in her bag. Also, a half pound of cheese, a handful of meat and anything else she had managed to grab whilst the shopkeeper had been giving chase to the kids, all stored under her coat. At the end of the day the overall would be discarded and the shopkeeper would appear as if by magic a clean, smart and well-dressed businessman. The overall would be left ceremoniously hanging on a hook in pride of place in the shop, where it would remain until the next day’s battles with grease, grime, dirt and the kids.
On every corner there seemed to be some trade going on. Beside the grocer there would be a paper shop on the opposite corner and opposite that there always seemed to be a fish & chip shop. The fourth corner would tend to be taken up by a small shop with an Aladdin’s cave of household wares. From this shop you would buy most of the things that you needed in a hurry. A screw that was needed to repair something, a light bulb, bucket, wall bracket, length of wood, glue, piece of lace, mousetrap, poison for the weeds and a million other things that were either needed in a hurry or you could not be bothered to go to town for. Myself I preferred the fish & chip shop. I remember the corner fish & chip shop from later visits to Shields. There always seemed to be an atmosphere of warmth and friendship with everybody huddled together to make more room for others to get in. At the time the counters seemed very tall to me, as I would have to stand on tiptoe to look up through a little window at the top of the counter at the fish piled up with mounds of batter besides them. There always seemed to be a frenzy of activity taking place behind the counter. Huge buckets of chips would be tossed into the boiling fat with a mighty roar as they hit the fat followed by a huge blast of steam. To me it was like wakening a fiery dragon that could only be calmed down when the person frying slammed the lid on the whole boiling mass. The fish would go in next, one by one after being dipped in the slimy batter. The fryer’s hand from my viewpoint always looked as if it was going to be immersed in the red-hot fat. With everything madly bubbling away the fryer would lean on the counter and have a bit gossip with the customers. People talked about all sorts of gossip. Some would get carried away talking about someone without realising that the person they were talking about had just walked in. At this point a battle of words would begin, very serious to the combatants but extremely funny to those waiting in line. The battle of words would begin to dim as they got closer to the counter and at this point they would just glare at each other and after being served would away with a look down their nose’s at each other.
If the fryer were real friendly he would give everybody a chip whilst they were waiting. That chip was the most delicious one to be had as it gave you an anticipation of what was to come. By giving just a few chips away he was cementing a loyalty from his customers and his shop would always be full.
These corner shops would always be a hive of activity inside and outside. Neighbours would stand and talk to each other both inside and outside local events and gossip would be gone over. All this information would be gathered like a modern day Internet user. Whereby today the whole world is at your fingertips in them days it was exactly the same the only difference was that their the world, to most people, only consisted of what was going on in the immediate vicinity.
I mentioned dead flies and mice droppings that seemed to be prevalent in some of these corner shops. These were not really considered a health hazard by most people, just a bloody nuisance everybody had to put up with. Just about everybody had flies and mice in their houses, so why not the corner shops, it was no different. Now rats, they were different, if the shop had rats then it was a dirty filthy shop, everybody knew that rats spread diseases. If you had rats in your house then you would be almost ostracised by your neighbours for being dirty, rats went only where there was dirt and filth. Mice and flies were not as fully accepted as being a spreader of disease in quite the same way as the rat. There was not much anyone could do about the flies, apart from hanging up flypaper that used to accumulate dead flies all over it and look unsightly. Sometimes it was better to ignore them and pretend they were not there than have flypaper hanging all over the place. Rolled up newspaper was the preference with the kids. They would take great delight in smashing to bits, against the wallpaper, any fly that they were quick enough to hit. What a bloody mess, but the surface could be wiped down. The stains were not noticeable so much with gaslight and dark wallpaper. Some people would not even bother to wipe the dead bodies from the wall; they were left there like some bloody memento of their killing spree. It was impressive to the neighbour’s kids. As for the mice, they were accepted as part of life, something that women would scream about if they saw one but tolerate if they did not see them. The mice must have known this as they mainly only ever came out when everybody had gone to bed. If you made a fuss about them the neighbours would laugh at you saying that they would do you no harm, ‘the mice were more scared of you than you were scared of them’. If things became too intolerable the whole family would go on mice alert and the killing would start, this time the trophies would be bigger, but not kept. The dead mice would be disposed of in the dustbin, or if the kids got one then the dead body would be inspected in the backyard. If the number of dead bodies were impressive then a charge would be levied to their mates to come and see the bodies all lined up in a row. This would go on until the father noticed, then it would be a clip around the ear and the business would go bust with the assets being seized and disposed of.
comeonthen
On nearly every street corner there was a corner shop. They were mainly managed, or owned, by men in brown overalls. These overalls had a thousand uses and could not be dispensed with. Down the sides of the overall was where he could clean his hands after handling the bloody meat before he handled the bread. The bottom of the overall could be lifted up to delicately carry the cakes from one part of the shop to the other, and the bottom corner of the overall handy, when no one was looking, for dusting off the counter and the mice droppings off the shelves, along with the dead flies that would accumulate.
On occasions the whole overall could be used as an offensive weapon against the major crime spree of young kids coming into the shop and grabbing a handful of sweets before running off. When alerted, the shopkeeper would run to the end of the counter where he had a counter-hinged opening revealing a waist high swing door. Up would go the counter, the swing door would fly open and the shopkeeper, now the vigilante, was on his way. He knew that by the time he got from behind the counter the kids would be out of the shop, so on his way the overall would be unbuttoned and taken off. This then would be rolled up in a ball and the chase would begin, with the shopkeeper scoring if he could bounce this overall off some young kids head. Sometimes a really daring kid would grab the overall after it was tossed, and after a few passes between his mates the overall would be dumped, preferably in some muddy puddle, if there was one handy. Exasperated the shopkeeper would pick up the overall, dust it off, put it back on and go back into his shop where he would get sympathy from the woman whom he had been serving before the commotion started. “I recognise some of them and will tell their mothers about it and make sure that they get a dammed good hiding, little thieving beggars, the lot of them”. With these words the woman would be leaving the shop with the packet of tea she had bought, placed in her bag. Also, a half pound of cheese, a handful of meat and anything else she had managed to grab whilst the shopkeeper had been giving chase to the kids, all stored under her coat. At the end of the day the overall would be discarded and the shopkeeper would appear as if by magic a clean, smart and well-dressed businessman. The overall would be left ceremoniously hanging on a hook in pride of place in the shop, where it would remain until the next day’s battles with grease, grime, dirt and the kids.
On every corner there seemed to be some trade going on. Beside the grocer there would be a paper shop on the opposite corner and opposite that there always seemed to be a fish & chip shop. The fourth corner would tend to be taken up by a small shop with an Aladdin’s cave of household wares. From this shop you would buy most of the things that you needed in a hurry. A screw that was needed to repair something, a light bulb, bucket, wall bracket, length of wood, glue, piece of lace, mousetrap, poison for the weeds and a million other things that were either needed in a hurry or you could not be bothered to go to town for. Myself I preferred the fish & chip shop. I remember the corner fish & chip shop from later visits to Shields. There always seemed to be an atmosphere of warmth and friendship with everybody huddled together to make more room for others to get in. At the time the counters seemed very tall to me, as I would have to stand on tiptoe to look up through a little window at the top of the counter at the fish piled up with mounds of batter besides them. There always seemed to be a frenzy of activity taking place behind the counter. Huge buckets of chips would be tossed into the boiling fat with a mighty roar as they hit the fat followed by a huge blast of steam. To me it was like wakening a fiery dragon that could only be calmed down when the person frying slammed the lid on the whole boiling mass. The fish would go in next, one by one after being dipped in the slimy batter. The fryer’s hand from my viewpoint always looked as if it was going to be immersed in the red-hot fat. With everything madly bubbling away the fryer would lean on the counter and have a bit gossip with the customers. People talked about all sorts of gossip. Some would get carried away talking about someone without realising that the person they were talking about had just walked in. At this point a battle of words would begin, very serious to the combatants but extremely funny to those waiting in line. The battle of words would begin to dim as they got closer to the counter and at this point they would just glare at each other and after being served would away with a look down their nose’s at each other.
If the fryer were real friendly he would give everybody a chip whilst they were waiting. That chip was the most delicious one to be had as it gave you an anticipation of what was to come. By giving just a few chips away he was cementing a loyalty from his customers and his shop would always be full.
These corner shops would always be a hive of activity inside and outside. Neighbours would stand and talk to each other both inside and outside local events and gossip would be gone over. All this information would be gathered like a modern day Internet user. Whereby today the whole world is at your fingertips in them days it was exactly the same the only difference was that their the world, to most people, only consisted of what was going on in the immediate vicinity.
I mentioned dead flies and mice droppings that seemed to be prevalent in some of these corner shops. These were not really considered a health hazard by most people, just a bloody nuisance everybody had to put up with. Just about everybody had flies and mice in their houses, so why not the corner shops, it was no different. Now rats, they were different, if the shop had rats then it was a dirty filthy shop, everybody knew that rats spread diseases. If you had rats in your house then you would be almost ostracised by your neighbours for being dirty, rats went only where there was dirt and filth. Mice and flies were not as fully accepted as being a spreader of disease in quite the same way as the rat. There was not much anyone could do about the flies, apart from hanging up flypaper that used to accumulate dead flies all over it and look unsightly. Sometimes it was better to ignore them and pretend they were not there than have flypaper hanging all over the place. Rolled up newspaper was the preference with the kids. They would take great delight in smashing to bits, against the wallpaper, any fly that they were quick enough to hit. What a bloody mess, but the surface could be wiped down. The stains were not noticeable so much with gaslight and dark wallpaper. Some people would not even bother to wipe the dead bodies from the wall; they were left there like some bloody memento of their killing spree. It was impressive to the neighbour’s kids. As for the mice, they were accepted as part of life, something that women would scream about if they saw one but tolerate if they did not see them. The mice must have known this as they mainly only ever came out when everybody had gone to bed. If you made a fuss about them the neighbours would laugh at you saying that they would do you no harm, ‘the mice were more scared of you than you were scared of them’. If things became too intolerable the whole family would go on mice alert and the killing would start, this time the trophies would be bigger, but not kept. The dead mice would be disposed of in the dustbin, or if the kids got one then the dead body would be inspected in the backyard. If the number of dead bodies were impressive then a charge would be levied to their mates to come and see the bodies all lined up in a row. This would go on until the father noticed, then it would be a clip around the ear and the business would go bust with the assets being seized and disposed of.
comeonthen
Re: BEYOND THE NETTY DOOR
can relate to edith street. in mid sixties when only a boy my grandmother used to live up there. used to visit with my old man every saturday. she lived in a ground floor flat and the atmosphere i have never forgotten it was so oppresive although my grandmother was a nice person. she once looked after me for the day and it was one of the longest days or my life, a very spooky place.
-
comeonthen
- Full Time Gobber
- Posts: 499
- Joined: Wed Dec 03, 2008 5:46 pm
Re: BEYOND THE NETTY DOOR
I was exactly the same. I was taken to visit my Auntie Aggie in Edith Street in the mid sixties and the feeling I got was exactly how you describe it. Big table in middle of floor two armchairs either side of fire, brass fender and high fire mantle with red tassels hanging from it and of course the big flower pot on windowsill. The whole atmosphere was like walking into the past and very very spooky.isomache wrote:can relate to edith street. in mid sixties when only a boy my grandmother used to live up there. used to visit with my old man every saturday. she lived in a ground floor flat and the atmosphere i have never forgotten it was so oppresive although my grandmother was a nice person. she once looked after me for the day and it was one of the longest days or my life, a very spooky place.
comeonthen
-
sherri
- Full Time Gobber
- Posts: 25239
- Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2003 10:14 am
- Location: Melbourne Australia
- Contact:
Re: BEYOND THE NETTY DOOR
Interesting, you are capturing an era, some of the things that are passed.
My life and home was probably pretty different to yours but I can identify with the outside loo, which is what we had till the late 1960's.
Unlike yours, ours was a 'real' outside loo. No fancy push button for us. Everything went into a large pan and a man came once a week to empty it into a truck. Must have been a top job that, hey??
We also never had chamber pots. Well, I suppose there may have been homes where they existed, but not in my house. You are right-in bad weather or dark and cold evenings, it put you off going-not that I can remember ever going in the middle of the night.
I also remember when corner shops were common.
We also had milk delivered and in the early hours, you would hear the milkman on his horse and cart.
In the morning, the men would go outside with shovels and scoop up any horse droppings-good for the garden, they said.
Times have changed a lot, haven't they!
My life and home was probably pretty different to yours but I can identify with the outside loo, which is what we had till the late 1960's.
Unlike yours, ours was a 'real' outside loo. No fancy push button for us. Everything went into a large pan and a man came once a week to empty it into a truck. Must have been a top job that, hey??
We also never had chamber pots. Well, I suppose there may have been homes where they existed, but not in my house. You are right-in bad weather or dark and cold evenings, it put you off going-not that I can remember ever going in the middle of the night.
I also remember when corner shops were common.
We also had milk delivered and in the early hours, you would hear the milkman on his horse and cart.
In the morning, the men would go outside with shovels and scoop up any horse droppings-good for the garden, they said.
Times have changed a lot, haven't they!
Re: BEYOND THE NETTY DOOR
Thanks for that - it certainly brought back memories .One of the things I remember very well is the freezing cold in the morning.trying to put some clothes on before you froze to death
I moved to Oxfordshire in October in the 1960s and the locals here used to think I was mad walking around semi-naked because I couldn't stand the heat!
If I could afford a second home and Edith Street was still standing- that's where I would buy .Just think what you could do with the upstairs and the downstairs together. A real des res by the sea.
Thanks again
Patricia
I moved to Oxfordshire in October in the 1960s and the locals here used to think I was mad walking around semi-naked because I couldn't stand the heat!
If I could afford a second home and Edith Street was still standing- that's where I would buy .Just think what you could do with the upstairs and the downstairs together. A real des res by the sea.
Thanks again
Patricia
-
comeonthen
- Full Time Gobber
- Posts: 499
- Joined: Wed Dec 03, 2008 5:46 pm
Re: BEYOND THE NETTY DOOR
You must have stayed until they were pulled down. A des res by the sea? No way! There were only two places in Shields that I would have personally knocked down myself and that was Edith Street and Redwell School. One was a camp for mice and the other was a camp for vermin.4acrabby1 wrote:Thanks for that - it certainly brought back memories .One of the things I remember very well is the freezing cold in the morning.trying to put some clothes on before you froze to death
I moved to Oxfordshire in October in the 1960s and the locals here used to think I was mad walking around semi-naked because I couldn't stand the heat!
If I could afford a second home and Edith Street was still standing- that's where I would buy .Just think what you could do with the upstairs and the downstairs together. A real des res by the sea.
Thanks again
Patricia
comeonthen